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U.S. fugitive known as “The Devil” captured while working as cop in Mexico 20 years after Ohio murder
A U.S. fugitive known as “The Devil” who was wanted for a deadly shooting outside an Ohio bar 20 years ago has been captured in Mexico, where authorities say he had been working as a local police officer.
Antonio “El Diablo” Riano, now 72, was arrested Thursday in Zapotitlan Palmas and charged with first-degree murder stemming from the December 2004 shooting in suburban Cincinnati, the U.S. Marshals Service said in a news release.
Riano fled the state and then the country after he allegedly shot and killed 25-year-old Benjamin Becarra two decades ago. He was on the Butler County Sheriff’s Office “Most Wanted” list and was profiled on an episode of the popular TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”
After the case went cold, “El Diablo” was finally found more than 2,000 miles away working an unexpected job.
“When Riano was arrested in Mexico he was found to be working as a local police officer,” said the U.S. agency, adding that the suspect was handed over to U.S. marshals in Mexico City on Thursday and charged with first-degree murder.
Riano was flown to Cincinnati and transported to the Butler County Jail where he remains pending court proceedings.
As Riano was being taken into custody at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, CBS affiliate WKRC-TV asked him why he had become a police officer. Riano replied in Spanish, “I wanted to help the people of Mexico.”
When asked by the station if he killed Benjamin Becerra, Riano replied: “No, I did not.”
“My God, there he is!”
On December 19, 2004, witnesses say Riano and Becarra got into an argument at the Roundhouse Bar in Hamilton, Ohio, which is about 30 miles north of Cincinnati, WKRC-TV reported. The dispute eventually moved outside, where a surveillance camera allegedly showed Riano fatally shooting Becerra in the face.
Police said they also had video of Riano buying bullets a few hours before the shooting at a Walmart and the murder weapon was allegedly found beneath floorboards in Riano’s home, the station reported.
“We had all the evidence we needed gathered,” Mark Henson, a detective who was on the case in 2004, told WKRC. “We already had a direct indictment against him. It was just a matter of waiting to find him.”
But Riano proved elusive, first escaping to New Jersey and then later to his hometown in Mexico, Riano told the station.
The big break in the case came earlier this year. Paul Newton, a former deputy on the case who now works for the Butler County Prosecutor’s Office, told WKRC authorities “started actively looking” for Riano in January.
It didn’t take long to discover “El Diablo” had a Facebook page and officials determined he was living in Oaxaca, Mexico, working as a police officer at the Zapotitlan Palmas Police Department, Newton said.
“I’m like, ‘My God, there he is!'” Newton told WKRC. “A little bit grayer, a little bit older, but it was him.”
The prosecutor’s office told WKRC that Becarra’s family was notified of Riano’s arrest and extradition. The station also learned that Riano still has family in Ohio, including a wife and three children.
“This arrest is the result of the ongoing sharing of information between the agencies and the determination of the investigators who refused to give up on this case,” said Michael D. Black, U.S. Marshal for the Southern District of Ohio.
Bela Karolyi, the charismatic if polarizing gymnastics coach who turned young women into champions and the United States into an international power, has died. He was 82.
A spokesperson for USA Gymnastics confirmed to CBS News by email that Karolyi died Friday. No cause of death was given.
Karolyi and wife Martha trained multiple Olympic gold medalists and world champions in the U.S. and Romania, including Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
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“A big impact and influence on my life,” Comaneci, who was just 14 when Karolyi coached her to gold for Romania at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, posted on Instagram.
The Karolyis defected to the United States in 1981 and over the next 30-plus years became a guiding force in American gymnastics, though not without controversy. Bela helped guide Retton — all of 16 — to the Olympic all-around title at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and memorably helped an injured Kerri Strug off the floor at the 1996 Games in Atlanta after Strug’s vault secured the team gold for the Americans.
Karolyi briefly became the national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics women’s elite program in 1999 and incorporated a semi-centralized system that eventually turned the Americans into the sport’s gold standard. It did not come without a cost. He was pushed out after the 2000 Olympics after several athletes spoke out about his tactics.
It would not be the last time Karolyi was accused of grandstanding and pushing his athletes too far physically and mentally.
During the height of the Larry Nassar scandal in the late 2010s — when the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor was effectively given a life sentence after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting gymnasts and other athletes with his hands under the guise of medical treatment — over a dozen former gymnasts came forward saying the Karolyis were part of a system that created an oppressive culture that allowed Nassar’s behavior to run unchecked for years.
Still, some of Karolyi’s most famous students were always among his staunchest defenders. When Strug got married, she and Karolyi took a photo recreating their famous scene from the 1996 Olympics, when he carried her onto the medals podium after she vaulted on a badly sprained ankle.
Despite losing his boxing match to Jake Paul, Mike Tyson in a social media post Saturday said he had “no regrets” to getting “in ring one last time.”
The boxing legend was defeated by social media star Jake Paul in a highly anticipated fight on Friday night with an age difference of over three decades between the two contenders.
Netflix said Saturday that 60 million households worldwide tuned in to watch the match. The two fighters went eight full rounds, with each round two minutes long. Paul defeated Tyson by unanimous decision and the 27-year-old upset boxer and 58-year-old former heavyweight champion hugged afterward.
Paul was expected to earn about $40 million from the fight, and Tyson was expected to take around $20 million for the fight, according to DraftKings and other online reports.
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Tyson said on his social media that “this is one of those situations when you lost but still won. I’m grateful for last night.”
The fight almost didn’t happen after Tyson experienced an ulcer flare-up while on a plane in March. He addressed his illness Saturday, writing that he “almost died in June.” He said he had eight blood transfusions and “lost half my blood and 25lbs in hospital and had to fight to get healthy to fight so I won.”
Tyson retired from boxing in 2005 after a 20-year career. He last fought in a 2020 exhibition match against former four-division world champ Roy Jones Jr.
“To have my children see me stand toe to toe and finish 8 rounds with a talented fighter half my age in front of a packed Dallas Cowboy stadium is an experience that no man has the right to ask for. Thank you,” he said.
Alex Sundby and
contributed to this report.
In their final meeting, China’s leader Xi Jinping told U.S. President Biden that his nation was “ready to work with a new administration,” as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take over.
The two leaders gathered Saturday on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. Mr. Biden was expected to urge Xi to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine. It marked their first in-person meeting since they met in Northern California last November.
Without mentioning Trump’s name, Xi appeared to signal his concern that the incoming president’s protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail could send the U.S.-China relationship into another valley.
“China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi said through an interpreter.
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Mr. Biden, meanwhile, spoke in broader brushstrokes about where the relationship has gone and reflected not just on the past four years, but on their long relationship.
“Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” he said.
Mr. Biden and Xi, with top aides surrounding them, gathered around a long rectangle of tables in an expansive conference room at Lima’s Defines Hotel and Conference Center.
There’s much uncertainty about what lies ahead in the U.S.-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned promising to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Bobby Djavaheri, president of Los Angeles-based Yedi Houseware Appliances — which manufactures its products in China — told CBS News in an interview this week that such tariffs “would decimate our business, but not only our business. It would decimate all small businesses that rely on importing.”
Trump has also proposed revoking China’s Most Favored Nation trade status, phasing out all imports of essential goods from China and banning China from buying U.S. farmland.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
It’s a big moment for Mr. Biden as he wraps up more than 50 years in politics. He saw his relationship with Xi as among the most consequential on the international stage and put much effort into cultivating that relationship.
Mr. Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
“For over a decade, you and I have spent many hours together, both here and in China and in between. And I think we’ve spent a long time dealing with these issues,” Mr. Biden said Saturday.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
U.S. intelligence officials also have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine.
And tensions flared last year after Mr. Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States.
